Woman's Hour - Female Refugees, Karen Maine director of Yes God, Yes, Women and their Scars

Episode Date: August 11, 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for Britain and France to work together to stop migrant boats crossing the Channel to Dover. On Friday a record number of unaccompanied migrant children arrived in the UK. The 23 youths were taken into the care of Kent County Council, on top of the 70 who arrived in July. According to the latest Home Office Statistics 90% of young (under 18) unaccompanied refugees who come in to the UK every year are male. What happens to the ten percent who are female? We hear from Dinah Beckett from Migration Yorkshire and Sharon Pearson who’s fostered Elsa.Yes God, Yes is a new film about 16 year old Alice growing up a Catholic and attending Catholic school in the early noughties in Midwest America During a chat on AOL she discovers masturbation and is overwhelmed with guilt. Seeking redemption, she attends a religious retreat to try and suppress her urges. Karen Maine, is the director..Part of our series about women and scars: we meet Laura who is 27 – she’s a care worker from Caerphilly in South Wales and she is a burns survivor. In 1920, a hundred years ago, the American Congress passed the 19th Amendment which gave women in the United States the right to vote. There had been an active and vociferous suffragette movement, led by some well known names – Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. The name of Lucy Stone is less familiar. She wanted votes for all, regardless of sex or race. Moira Hickey went to her birthplace, West Brookfield, Massachusetts in 2018 to join the celebration of the bicentenary of Lucy Stone’s birth. Presenter: Jenni Murray Reporter: Ena Miller Reporter: Moira Hickey Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Tuesday the 11th of August. Good morning. In today's programme, Karen Mayne's film Yes, God, Yes. It's about Alice, a young Roman Catholic who learns about certain sexual practices on the internet and is consumed by guilt. Will a religious retreat help her suppress her natural urges? The next in our series is about scars and how we live with them. Laura suffered terrible burns when she was a baby. And a hundred years since American women won the right to vote,

who was Lucy Stone, the founder of the Women's Journal, intended to spread the word on suffrage? Now the small boats bringing migrants across the Channel have topped the news agenda this week. The Prime Minister has called for Britain and France to work together to stop the crossings coming into Dover. Around 700 people have landed in the past few days, and on Friday, a record number of children arrived in the UK. The 23 youths were taken into the care of Kent County Council, added to the 70 who arrived in July. The latest Home Office statistics say 90% of unaccompanied refugees under the age of 18 every year are male.

So what happens to the 10% who are female? Well, Sharon Pearson is a foster parent. She's fostered Elsa Sese, a refugee who came from Eritrea. Dinah Beckett is the project director of Migration Yorkshire. Dinah, what have you been making of what's going on in the channel at the moment? Good morning. I think we, I find the images of people in those small boats very distressing. What we see is that there are very desperate people who are running in fear of their lives.

And whatever, you know, the barriers and restrictions that get put into place people end up taking greater and greater risks to try and find safety and so it just reminds me how desperately we need safe routes and just how dangerous and how how desperate you would have to be to take such great risks to find safety. It seems very different from what you have been used to which has been people coming over in lorries why do you think that major change has happened? I think the the roots of that you know all the kind of action to make it harder and harder for refugees and migrants to access the lorries and those sorts of things. It just pushes people in different directions. You know, the fear that they experience doesn't disappear.

The desperation, the need to find safety. What we see is that very many people do claim asylum in mainland Europe and the majority of people claim asylum in mainland Europe. But some people want and need to get to the UK very often that's to do with family connections and other connections to the UK or that they're you know the smugglers are kind of taking them bringing them here and but the I think that the use of small boats is actually a kind of a reaction or response to how much harder the other routes have got and also that the smugglers have kind of picked that up as as a way of um transporting people into the

country making money i suppose oh absolutely i mean you know the the whole route is a you know is about exploitation of deeply vulnerable people what particular difficulties do young women and girls face? It's horrendously dangerous for young women and girls. I can't even begin to tell you how awful it is for girls because it's dangerous for everybody. But girls and women are particularly at risk of sexual exploitation. For women, a lot of women are travelling with young children or pregnant. I mean, it's just awful. And the ways in which people travel, you know, whether it's in the backs of lorries, sleeping outdoors, all those things in of themselves are horrible and dangerous. And then the kind of risk of predatory people who are willing to kind of buy and sell people and to move them along are particularly dangerous. And what we do see amongst the girls is particularly high levels of trafficking that a lot of girls are brought into the UK through sort of trafficking means so that they're found in various kind of exploitative situations.

Why, Dinah, is fostering seen as a good option? For us, fostering is the best option, really, because what happens is that young people have shown tremendous courage and resilience and bravery making these journeys. But when they get to this country, they need to recover and they need to kind of learn about life in the UK and there's an awful lot to learn in a very short period of time and what we see with foster families it's is that they are able to bring and all kinds of learning and teaching to the young people so they can you know they can learn English but also they learn about what happens in normal daily life and it

helps them with networks and connections to understand, you know, what the expectations are at school and college and those sorts of things. And by having a family around you, those sorts of things are so, so much more supported than when young people are living semi-independently. And particularly for girls, because the girls journeys, you know, just so awful. There is a lot of recovery to do and so we feel that families are the best place to find that safety where you can begin to rebuild and recover. Elsa how did you come to be fostered by Sharon? I hate it, it's good. What was it like when you first arrived at Sharon's house? I was frightened because there were new people for me.

And then I got happy because they are very nice people. Sharon, what made you want to foster a child like Elsa? It's something that I've always been interested in, in fostering. And my children were all grown up, my partner's children were all grown up. And we didn't necessarily go into it to foster asylum seeking young people but um we we were asked to take Elsa and we were absolutely overjoyed about taking her um I just wanted to to be able to care for for young people that maybe had a bad start in life or you know um and it's just enriched our life so much it's just amazing now Elsa tells us she was frightened when she first came into your house how difficult was it for you particularly where language has been a problem it was really really

difficult um because we just wanted to reassure Elsa that she was actually safe here you know after these the horrendous journeys that these young people go through it was really important to get that across to her which was really difficult because we don't speak the same language um we we used google translate for for a good few weeks but very very quickly Elsa's English became absolutely great and it was amazing to see her um transform from this really shy girl that was very inward to what she is now. She's amazing. Elsa, how would you say life has changed for you

in the years that you've been with Sharon? My life has changed a lot of things. A big lot of things have changed because when I came here, wasn't speak in english i i don't have been uh full of confidence but when i come here i changed my life totally different so i am happy now sharon i know you now care for three young eritrean women. Yeah that's right we do. So you've been through the process three times. Yes. Have you used Google Translate for all of them? No we didn't we couldn't use Google Translate for the two the second two girls we had because their language Tigrinya

isn't on Google Translate but but luckily Elsa speaks both languages. But there's lots and lots of help out there to help you overcome these obstacles. We foster it at Leeds City Council and the social workers have been amazingly supportive. And how important has it been, would you say, to help them maintain contact with their cultural heritage that there are three of them together? Absolutely. They're like sisters. They'd never met each other before they came to the UK, but they're like sisters and they're part of our bigger family now.

It's really important. And we researched all about the culture because it's completely different. And it's really important to us that we allow them to embrace their culture as well. So they go to church. They're all Orthodox Christians, they go to church. We cook Eritrean food all the time, you know, all things like that. It's really important, it was really important for us to be able to provide those things so the girls would feel like they're settled and happy. And so they've just got a little bit of familiarity as well in in their daily lives also what are you hoping for in your future i think you're hoping to be a nurse is that right yeah yeah so what studying are you doing health and social care

and how's it going uh it's a little bit difficult, but I am doing, I'm trying my best. She's working very hard. Now, Dinah, what happens to the other children in the care system who don't achieve refugee status as Elsa has? So the system can be quite complex, but for children who arrive unaccompanied they do get some leave to remain um up until just before their 18th birthday so they get a level of stability at that point um and the the grant rates are kind of statistically higher for

unaccompanied children actually so um a lot of young people will end up with refugee status and building their lives here it's complicated because it's the immigration process and the asylum process there are lots of possible outcomes but we some of the schemes for young refugees also are resettlement schemes where young people arrive with refugee status and we have seen that girls are particularly prioritised within those schemes because they're from some of the camps closer to the kind of for example some children came that had been rescued from the detention centres in Libya by the UN and quite a large proportion of that group were girls and they came with refugee status so the situations can be a bit complex but on the whole young people will have a secure status certainly during their sort of period until they're 18 and for many of them beyond that.

Well Diana Beckett, Sharon Pearson and Elsa Sese. Elsa very best of luck with your nursing. Thank you all very much for being with us. And if you have experience of what Sharon has been doing, we'd really like to hear from you. Send us an email or, of course, you can tweet. Now, Karen Mayne is the director of a film called Yes, God, Yes. It features a 16-year-old girl called Alice who has had a strict Roman Catholic upbringing but secretly at home has been chatting on an AOL site

and finds she's aroused by some of the things she learns there and inevitably feels overwhelmed by guilt. In class, there's sex education from Father Murphy. If you're not keen on your children hearing an extract and my conversation with Karen, you can, of course, switch off for a bit. OK, it's like this. Guys are like microwave ovens,

and ladies are like conventional ovens. Guys only need a few seconds, you know, like a microwave, to get switched on, while ladies, they typically need to preheat for a while. But God created sex with boundaries and for a purpose. Does anyone wanna take a stab at what that boundary is? Yes, Wade. Marriage.

Very good. And does anybody know the purpose? To have children. Perfecto. When a man and a woman receive the sacrament of matrimony, God calls on them to create children in his image. Any sex outside of one man, one woman, one marriage is against God's plan. Um, what about sex with yourself?

Can you create children from sex with yourself? No. Right. So... It's against god's plan exactly well after her aol experience alice decides to attend a religious retreat to try and suppress her urges karen main joins me from brooklyn karen how much of the sex education morality lesson that we've just heard mirrors your own experience? Pretty closely. I always start off by saying that the film is 80% true and actually happened to me when I was growing up in Iowa and going to Catholic school for 13 years. But yeah, everything

you hear in that scene, the microwave, conventional oven sort of metaphor was said to us. And yeah, we had to watch a partial birth abortion. That was so graphic. We had to get permission slips signed by our parents and a class called Christian Lifestyles. So it was definitely a bewildering, strange way to get sexual education for sure. Now, Alice is quite a naive 16-year-old, and the film centres on her discovery of masturbation on the internet and her sense of guilt and shame about it.

What was your experience? It was very similar. I feel like, you know, this was the year 1999, 2000. The internet was, you know, new and exciting, but no one really understood its full potential or what you could kind of get into or who you'd be chatting with on there. So it's definitely like a window into discovering a lot of things about sex that I probably wouldn't have otherwise discovered until I graduated high school and left Iowa. It was a very sort of homogenous, conservative upbringing for me, and I wanted to showcase that in my character as well. How much shame did you feel?

A lot. I remember my first sexual experience on AOL um I I much like the character in the film was just innocently playing a word scramble game in a chat room and I got an email with some quote saucy pics from a complete stranger um and I looked at them being a curious you know teenager and then I had to go upstairs and have dinner with my parents and I remember being so guilty and shameful that I didn't have any appetite and I couldn't eat any of the any of the dinner my mom had cooked now it is a coming of age story but I know you've said it's a coming of age story of a different kind what do you mean by that? Yeah, I really wanted to tell a female coming of age story that was focused on self-discovery, self-pleasure, and not just partnered sex. I think a lot of women

discover their own bodies before they have partnered experiences, and I felt like I never really saw that explored as a main narrative, even though it's such a defining moment for so many young people in their lives. But why do you suppose female pleasure is so often absent from films and television? I think it's just a general issue with society and how we discuss sex and sexual education. I know there are more progressive schools of thought out there, more progressive teachers and classes, which is amazing. But I think female sexual pleasure, because it's not implicitly, you know, it's not necessary to procreate.

It's often left out of more scientific discussions of, you know, reproduction. So therefore it's just more taboo than male sexual pleasure is. And I think it's slowly starting to change, which is great. But, you know, as a young teen girl, for me, discovering it, I felt like I was doing something wrong and forbidden because no one had discussed it with me before. How easy was it to make sure the scenes where she is testing her sexuality are rather comic rather than titillating? This film is absolutely not titillating. Yes, that was definitely, I'm so glad you think that. Thank you. That was definitely something I was trying to achieve. And I think it was just a

matter of, you know, keeping it really grounded in reality. I mean, the first time she touches herself, she's on AOL eating a bowl of Cheetos for an after school snack. So I mean, I just think, you know, when young people are discovering themselves, you know, it's never really sexy. It's just like a very genuine and honest exploration of your body. It's not prepared in any way. So yeah, I think just the small details of like the Cheetos or just the desperation of wanting to do it, the moment you feel something helps to keep it grounded. and then you know teenage sexuality there's always a little bit of comedy in that um i think my film goes for a more gentle comedy than than most of the typical quote sex comedies do uh but i was just keeping it focused on my personal experience

as much as possible to keep it grounded there is a moment with um a mop handle, just leaning on it. And I wondered, how was it for Natalia Dyer, who plays Alice? She's known from the Netflix Stranger Things. I thought, what's she feeling about playing these scenes? Yeah, I mean, I can't know for sure. But I mean, she was really um up for anything she had done the short film that we did um as a proof of concept to get funding for this feature so she knew the role really well and you know she really you know all these scenes were in the script so

she knew what she was getting into um and i think she probably just really connected with the story and felt in a similar way that I do but yeah in terms of you know rubbing herself against the mop handle there's also like a cell phone you know she I in terms of having sex scenes as an actor I would I would like to think that having sex scenes alone as opposed to with an acting partner is probably a little less awkward so maybe she was grateful to just have to do it with herself and not have to have a partner. There's a lot of moralizing going on at the retreat, but Alice finds that both teachers and pupils are saying one thing and

often doing another. What were you hoping to express there? A couple of things, you know, I think Catholicism in general can be a little hypocritical. It's very hard and fast, it's rules and what you can and can't do. And I think a lot of times those just set, you know, the average person up to fail and then need to repent for their sins. And I want to just show like with the priest going through a very similar narrative and struggle as Alice, but he's much older. And Alice has a different reaction by the end of it than he does. and it's it's i just wanted to humanize uh these problems of guilt and shame and show that they're not just for you know young girls even though they often get the brunt of it um and that you know if if we just maybe if the kind of catholicism adapted just slightly maybe people would feel a little less guilty all the time karen maim thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.

And I will just mention that Yes, God, Yes can be found on digital download. And that will be from the 17th of August. Thank you for joining us. Still to come in today's program, the story of Lucy Stone, 200 years since her birth. She was an American suffragette who's been somewhat eclipsed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. What was her role in winning the vote for women in the United States? And the serial episode two of Bird in the Hand. In recent weeks we've been discussing scars and asking how when the skin is damaged by self-harm or the ravages of a flesh-eating bug, we learn to live with them. Laura is 27 and is a care worker in Caerphilly in South Wales. She told Anna Miller about the burns she suffered as a baby and the scars they caused.

From my belly button down to my toes, I've always said that my scars look like scrumpled up tights they feel smooth and normal but not normal to look at they've got lumps and bumps but it looks like like you're wearing a corset and then your fatty bits then coming over the other side so when you say wearing a corset it just goes tight skinning yeah it's really tight on my hips because I've got the scars going around my hips as well though nobody's questioned it when I was wearing jeans but you can definitely notice it from the outline of the jeans it does make me feel uncomfortable sometimes because you think

people are going to notice because you are oddly shaped but yeah it does play on my mind sometimes if I'm going down to Cardiff shopping people will stare at you how did it happen when I was about one a non-member of my birth family put me in the bath and my birth mum came in and saw what happened she She dialed 999. So the bath was too hot? Yeah, it was scalded in water. It was really hot, definitely for the baby's skin. It happened at 9am and I got seen at 2 o'clock, which led into dehydration

and also a bit of effect in the brain as well and the learning difficulties sometimes. So it's not just like your physical appearance how has it been dealt with well i got removed from the situation from a birth family because that's another story for another day so now i'm adopted with amazing parents they've taught me from the start what's happened would you call a scar would you call a skin difference what would you like to be labelled as? Because people do like to label. I like to be labelled as a burn survivor because

you're not a victim but you are a survivor of what happened in the accident and that you've come out stronger. And so what's it been like growing up with him? As a child, it's been hard because you get children who have been nasty and bullying. I remember this one lad, and he said that I had, like, zombie legs and that basically I should have died in the bath. I remember on my first day of high school, I did wear a skirt um I wore a skirt with high socks and these horrible little like club hoppers as you call them 15 16 I started wearing trousers so I just hide it all up and then you get you to your teenage stage and I went really quiet

I didn't have the confidence to talk to people I had very close friends and that's the way I dealt with it I hid myself as well from the world and then about 18 21 I decided I'm me and this is what I should do and what made you decide? Because it just doesn't happen overnight does it? No I had a lot of talks with people that I'm friends with with this adult burns club and the children's burns club as well and I heard a story from somebody else and I thought my life's not that bad. Everybody accepted you for who you are and that was really nice because then you could show off your burns you can tell your stories you can encourage each other yeah because you mentioned that um the first time I think on Instagram you're one of your first posts were

you all on a beach in swimsuits and you're like this is my burns it was about eight of us in a row and with all different burns and all walks of life. And we thought, you know, we're going to post this because we're going to show people that we are brave and that it's all right to talk about your burns as well and open up to draw more people in and just try and live a normal life. When you use the word normal life, what do you mean by that? Like stop people asking you questions, stop people staring at you, stop name-calling as well, and just stop people bringing up the past, basically. Just move forward and just get on with it.

Now I'm getting older, you just get the aches and the pains where you're on your feet all the time and the pressure on them. Your feet, because my toes, I've got amputation of toes, so they sometimes get cold and I get that cold feeling in them. So we've got ten toes. How many are amputated and where? So I'm counting them as i go along one two three four five six seven eight eight amputated and my two big toes are just burnt down there's no nails on them whatsoever um they're like webbed, like a duck's webbed feet.

I remember having an operation on them because I remember the doctor saying, well, my mum told me that the doctor said I wouldn't be able to walk again. And what they did was the first time they've ever done it on a human being in the UK was cut a little insurgent in my foot and put my own skin inside it from my top half to make my feet grow wow I know it was pretty amazing and then they put pins then on the top so it'd straighten my feet out and my toes out a bit more as well so they're not curled or crumpled I was reading forums about burn survivors and a lot of them say it wasn't the actual pain of what happened they said the real pain is the recovery

and therapy. Yeah the recovery is the hardest if you had an operation on like my knee that was hard because then you had to get back into the physio of things you had to get back to moving it um sorry that's my dog again you decided that you wanted to help other people yeah other people like family members because not just us go through like depression stage or the mental health it's them as well my mum stayed with me all through my operations and she stayed by my side and that's hard as well I didn't blame my mum I took it out on my adoptive parents because I know it's not their fault and I think it was pretty hard for them as well because they couldn't do anything for me they couldn't understand it as well the frustration they could see it in their eyes how did you take it

out on them oh I don't want to sound like a nasty person I used to rebel like if I had an operation do up I would play up for like weeks and weeks I would try and have a paddy or try and be hyper and like trying to embarrass them or something and when I used to like change the dressings as well I would shout at them and taking out like my frustration out on them and it wasn't fair if I was doing that to my parents what are the people going through as well with their children all you can do is be there for your child when they're going through so much. Stand by them, support them, and just make them feel like they're loved.

And don't maybe show like you're sad. Go for a coffee, maybe talk to a friend, talk to another family member, or talk to another burn survivor's parents, because you're not the only one that's going through it. So when we first met you sent me an email saying hello my name's Laura and basically told me a little bit about yourself and then with that email was attached a picture of you, you in a bathing suit. I was in a beauty pageant. It was the first ever beauty pageant for people who've

got differences and uniqueness. So we've had a few people who have like the burns and the scars and then we've also had people who've got cleft palates, people like in the wheelchairs, someone who had a feeding tube. So it's all walks of life. What I love about the picture is that you're in your bikini with your sash, your hands on your hips, doing the sort of stand everyone likes to do with one leg on the front. Why was it so important for you to do that? I wanted young people to look up to me as a role model and think she can do it, I can do it, I can get it out of my shell the other thing I wanted to ask you and it's actually quite a personal question but it was something I wanted to put to you um was that with all of this and you have a partner and growing up and you know you get to the age where you think boys yeah what what happens when you get to that age of boys and um you have burn scars from the waist down how does that all work my first boyfriend was tricky

because i oh tricky yeah tricky i thought i thought he said he's called ricky okay that's fine tricky yeah it was hard trying to explain to him what it was like and he adapted to it i was about 18 and we were talking on Facebook. And I was explaining it to him that I had burns. And he's like, what do you mean? So I took a photo and I sent it to him. And he was absolutely fine with it, to be honest with you. Were you nervous? I was nervous, but I wasn't because I was thinking,

if he likes me for me, that's all I care about. My partner that I'm with now, explaining that to him was hard. I was nervous when he first saw my scars as well. He was a bit shocked and he thought, how can somebody do this to a person? Do you ever forget about it? We do. He hasn't asked any questions since we met and that was like three years ago. So it is all normal.

Because my belly is so skin tight I'm afraid to have kids because of it that was more important for him as well because he wants kids in the future and I was scared that I couldn't give it to him and is that possible it can be but we'll have to wait and see one day I'm hoping kids. One day, but at the moment I've got my dogs. I know. I've spent a lot of time with them. I can deal with my dogs. Laura and her dogs are talking to Enna Miller.

And if you want information and support, you can find sources on the Woman's Hour website. You can hear the other stories in the series by going to BBC Sounds, and on Thursday we'll hear from Aimee, who lives with psoriasis. In 1920, a hundred years ago, the American Congress passed the 19th Amendment, which gave women in the United States the right to vote. There had been an active and vociferous suffragette movement led by some

well-known names, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The name of Lucy Stone is less familiar. She wanted votes for all, regardless of sex or race. In 1847, she became one of the first American women to graduate from university. When she married, she demanded equality in law with her husband and kept her own name. She also founded the Woman's Journal to spread the word on suffrage. Moira Hickey went to her birthplace, West Brookfield in Massachusetts, in 2018 to join the celebration of the bicentenary of Lucy Stone's birth. They have come from across America, descendants of the woman known as the Morning Star,

the heart and soul of the women's rights movement in the USA. They're here in the town hall in West Brookfield to mark 200 years since Lucy's birth on a farm just a few miles away. The town loves Lucy now, but it hasn't always been this way. This beautiful church sitting here on the corner expelled her in 1851. Regina Edmonds, a professor of psychology and women's studies, has brought me to the Common in West Brookfield to teach me some local history. Once her career had started and she was known nationally for her strong rhetoric and ideas regarding anti-slavery and women's rights, they did not want a woman speaking so strongly about these, quote quote controversial matters. We have to say the

church did readmit her in 2017. Hey folks if you're inside the museum come on out. There's little evidence left of Lucy Stone's life. The christening cap lies in a glass case here but the family home has long gone. And Joelle Millian, a biographer of Lucy Stone, reminds me that Lucy's history, like all history, has depended very much on who got to write it. Women's role in society was not a subject of historical interest in the United States until around the 1960s and 70s with the new wave of feminism. And by that time, a specific interpretation of the early women's rights movement and the early women's

suffrage movement had been in place unchallenged for more than 80 years. I'm referring to the first three volumes of the classic History of Woman Suffrage, compiled and edited primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the 1880s, while the suffrage movement was still bitterly divided into two rival wings or associations, one of which they led and the other one Stone led. Sanne and Anthony also wrote autobiographies or commissioned biographies during their lifetime. Lucy Stone refused to do this, even forbade her daughter to write a biography, until after suffrage was won.

It's time for a tour of Lucy's hometown. As we go, I ask what Lucy would have thought of America today. Oh, what would anyone have thought of America today? I think she would be very pleased with the advances that have been made. She'd still be out there working for equal pay for equal women. And I might mention one of the overlooked episodes in Lucy Stone's life was her strike for equal pay as a student at Oberlin. That was something she worked for all of her life. She'd be upset.

She would be impressed that women's rights have expanded, but we have the racial issues in this country between the blacks and the whites, and she would be working towards trying to ameliorate those issues. That's what she would be doing today. We're not like Europe. We don't have the aristocracy or the king or queen to say stuff. Our royalty is Hollywood and the people that speak out there, basically. And great to see the women standing up and, you know, actually speaking

out and being like, yeah, we should get fair pay. You know, we should be treated as equally as men. You know, black men got the vote before women did. And now we had a black man as president. So are we finally going to eventually, you know, have a woman as president? I'm wondering if it is going to be that same pattern. But the USA has a way to go. In 2020, it'll be celebrating a century since women won the vote. But Freddie Kaye, a founder and president of the Women's Suffrage Celebration Coalition of Massachusetts, says that equality is still a work in progress. We can't pop champagne and celebrate wonderfully, isn't it terrific and fabulous? It's been 100 years and look at where we are today.

Well, it's better, but we're not there yet. And there's so much more work to do. So many of the arguments that were made against women getting the vote are arguments and issues that we hear today. You know, at one point during the campaign early on in the 1800s, Amelia Bloomer started using different dress, and the women were booed, and they were hissed, and all the newspapers talked about the clothes and what they looked like rather than the topics. And so the women gave up. They said, it's not worth it. It's a distraction.

It reminds us today of when women run for office and they get criticized for their clothes and their hair and everything. So knowing that we haven't broken all the glass ceilings, so many have not been broken, of course the big one for the presidency. But the bottom line is we are just not equal. And so education, I think, is the most important thing so that people learn this history and that they will be inspired and motivated to vote. Democracy is not a spectator sport, as they say. So it's really important that people understand you've got to vote. I talked to two women whose jobs are going some way towards balancing out the gender divide in Massachusetts politics, where there have been more than 20,000 men and only 197 women serving

in the legislature. Anne Gobi is a Massachusetts state senator. Jean Strauss is standing for election. Lucy Stone, remember, was one of the first women in the USA to graduate, more than 170 years ago. Very early on when I was starting, I was told, you know, don't talk about the fact that you have graduated from college. And in fact, I have four college degrees. I have an honorary doctorate, which was in part given to me because of work I've done on legislation. And I thought this would be, I would think, a value added. There's still this mentality

of, you know, a woman's place is really in the home. And this is just something you're doing on a lark. And it's like, no, I've worked on legislation across the United States for a dozen years. It's like, I don't want a hobby, I want a job. I don't want the title, I want the job. We live in a very interesting time right now where there's been an enormous amount of change, and I think there's always a bit of a slip back when there's been a lot of change.

But it is interesting that the fight that Lucy had and the inspiration that she is to us, now that we're all becoming aware of who she was, this woman who was invisible, really invisible in history, it hasn't changed as much as we thought. You have to be on your game a lot more. That's how I feel. And I see that with women politicians that I know, that they really know what they're talking about,

and they become very passionate, especially on specific issues, and they can beat them right into the ground. But doesn't that enrage you, that you know you have to do more? Well, in a way, but I think the more that you see women in politics, the more that will go as far as having to do that. We can always use strong voices and someone that can energize. And obviously, Lucy was able to do that 200 years ago, and I think that that energy continues to see that people still want, still want to believe that that change is possible,

that they can be part of that change. Given that her words are Lucy Stone's main legacy, I asked her biographer, Joelle Millian, for her favorite quote. JOELLE MILLIAN, All we are asking for is simple justice. And I think that sums up the appeal of her demand, that with all of these founding principles that America was found on, equality for all, no taxation without representation, that she was just asking the country to live up to its own principles. And that was summed up in her phrase of simple justice. And that report was by Moira Hickey. Lots from you on the question of migrants and refugees. Ellie said, glad to see the topic covered by Women's Hour

and with the voices of a young person and foster carer and be able to hear about three young people caring for one another like sisters and part of our family now. Must acknowledge diversity of young people as well. Natasha said, Loved hearing stories of hope coming from such desperate circumstances. Well worth a listen.

Sue said, I would just like to mention the wonderful work undertaken by the charity Refugees at Home. I had always wanted to give some practical help to asylum seekers coming to the UK who've suffered such trauma. I contacted the charity who offer temporary accommodation to refugees and asylum seekers. We were interviewed and our home was assessed as suitable and we were then asked to provide a temporary home for a young woman fleeing persecution in her home country. She stayed for four months and changed our lives forever. She gave so much more than we could provide her. Her bravery and determination to find a better life continues and we remain in touch with her. Paul said the whole cross-channel refugee crisis

could be solved by putting the refugees on buses in Calais and taking them across the channel to a And then Michael said, These are not poor people. I understand it cost them thousands of pounds to pay a people smuggler to get them across the channel. They're simply opportunists, knowing that they will probably be rescued in the course of the crossing, and that the chances of being deported are less than 3%. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that your listeners support the ridiculous views of the guests on your programme. There should be an opportunity for opposing views to be heard, but of course that wouldn't suit the Woman's Hour mission, would it? So much for a neutral BBC. Victoria wrote, very happy for you to use this, when I hear about the influx of migrants,

I wonder why nobody suggests we should pat ourselves on the back for creating a country that people want to come to. And Jenny said, these people aren't desperate. They would stay in Europe if they were that desperate. The reason they want to come to the UK is benefits and accommodation. Some of those actually said this when they were in the so-called jungling calais. I'm fed up with seeing them come in in their droves. It's time to put a stop to it once and for all. Do join me tomorrow, if you can, when I'll be talking to Alexandra Wilson. She's

a young barrister and she's the author of In Black and White, the story of how she became a barrister. That's tomorrow. Join me two minutes past 10 if you can. Bye bye. Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from that funny history podcast, You're Dead to Me. Big news, we are back, once again combining the talents of comedians and expert historians as we explore stuff like ancient Egyptian pyramids, Genghis Khan, and 19th century vampire literature. Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.